Late, Late in the Evening

Aunt Kirstie hardly ever asked what we had been doing with ourselves during the morning or what we were going to do after dinner and she did not do so on this occasion. We slipped out while she was doing the washing-up and went down to the duckpond. Grandfather, we knew, would be settling down for his afternoon nap and Aunt Lally would be doing her own washing-up, so the coast was clear. All the same, we went a long way round to get to the gap we had made in the hermit's iron railings. We took cover among raspberry canes and currant bushes after we had skirted the duckpond, then we went behind the pigsties and, having reached old Polly's stable, we took cover behind that and waited and listened. I still did not want to go to the cottage, but I was afraid of Kenneth's going alone.

There was nobody about, so we made for the gap in the fence and squeezed through. Unless somebody looked over the side wall which had glass on top to keep children from climbing in, we knew we could not be spotted, for the people who lived next door had put up a very high fence between them and the hermit's untidy garden. We tip-toed up what was left of the garden path, listened at the back doorway and then went in through the kitchen to the front room.

There was the filled-in hole and near it lay Mr Ward's pickaxe. It was then that Kenneth said, 'Well, that's no use to us. We ought to have brought a spade.'

'That wouldn't be much use, either,' I said. 'We tried Uncle Arthur's once, don't you remember? We couldn't do much with it, even in his garden. I vote we chuck this and find something else to do.'

'And leave the treasure, or maybe the clue to the murder?'

'Well, what's the use? We can't get it on our own. Besides...'

'Besides what?'

'We might find there wasn't any treasure or any clue and then we, or whoever helped us, would have had all the sweat for nothing.' (I did not express my real fear of what we might find.)

'Oh, rot! If Mr Ward filled in the hole, he must have buried something. Stands to reason.'

'Not if he's mad it doesn't,' I said again.

'You said 'whoever helped us'. I've thought of somebody who would.'

'They're all in school, and, anyway, it wouldn't be our secret any longer.'

'Poachy Ling isn't in school.'

'But he's barmy.'

'All the better. He won't know what it's all about, and he's as strong as a horse. He's always hanging about and trying to join in things. He'd come like a shot if we asked him.'

'He gibbers and dribbles. I'm scared of him.'

'He's all right. Just a bit simple, Uncle Arthur says. That's why he doesn't go to proper work. Does odd jobs here and there and helps his mother with her washing. Let's go and see if he's hanging about anywhere.'

Poachy Ling was usually to be found hanging about. He was called Poachy not because he had a talent for snaring rabbits or taking pheasants, but because it was the nearest he ever got to pronouncing his own name, which was Percy. He was known to be harmless, but his moppings and mowings always made me uneasy and anxious to get away from him. In other words he was the village idiot, but an older brother protected him and Our Sarah would not permit any of her gang to tease him when his brother was at work. Neither, however, would she have him as a member of her group, although he was always, in a hopeful spirit, trying to become a camp-follower. I suppose he must have had the mentality of a retarded child of four. I believe his age in years was twenty- three.

'Even if we had Poachy we still haven't got a spade,' I said.

'There's Uncle Arthur's in the shed. You go and get that, and I'll go and find Poachy.'

'Uncle Arthur might be waxy.'

'Not he. He let us dig in the garden with it.'

Digging in Uncle Arthur's garden and digging up the floor of the hermit's filthy hovel seemed to my mind two very different things, but I did not say so. I sneaked back to Aunt Kirstie's while Kenneth went out by the front door of the cottage. Luckily the shed was at the bottom of the garden next to the earth closet, so I did not need to go near the house. I secured the heavier of Uncle Arthur's two spades, added the iron crowbar we had borrowed when we forced the palings apart, and returned to the garden of the cottage.

I waited there for what seemed a very long time before Kenneth re-appeared. He came back through the cottage and found me poking about among the bushes with the crowbar.

'What are you doing?' he asked.

'Nothing. I've found something, though. Show you later. Where's Poachy?'

'In the road. Come and help me make him come in.' He picked up the spade, I followed with the crowbar and we dumped them on top of the filled-in hole. Poachy was writhing about and talking to himself. I took one arm and Kenneth took the other and we persuaded him into the cottage. Kenneth showed him the spade, handed it to him and indicated the place where we wanted him to dig. I picked up the crowbar and retreated towards the kitchen. I think I had some vague idea of protecting Kenneth in case Poachy turned nasty-not that he ever did.

Apparently the suggestion conveyed by the spade and the newly tramped-down earth appealed to something in the idiot's memory. He fell into a series of weird contortions, grinned and slobbered, picked up the spade and fell to work. Soon earth and stones were flying in all directions, so Kenneth and I took cover in the kitchen doorway, peeping out every now and again to see how he was getting on.

'What were you poking in the bushes for?' Kenneth asked, while Poachy delved and heaved. 'You said you found something. What?'

'A boot,' I said, 'elastic-sided. I believe it's one of Mr Ward's.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN